Miller was born in Edinburgh in the mid-’60s, and lived in Lincolnshire for some time before returning to Scotland, where she lived in North Berwick, East Lothian. She was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 2001, going into remission several times over the years. She is survived by her husband and their daughter.

See the June issue of Locus for a complete obituary.

Harryhausen pioneered the “Dynamation” stop-motion model animation process, which revolutionized fantasy and SF filmmaking. He classic works include 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958) and the iconic skeleton warrior battle in Jason and the Argonauts (1963), which influenced hosts of SF/fantasy filmmakers. After three busy decades in Hollywood, his last major effects work was on 1981′s Clash of the Titans. Harryhausen was influential on generations of SF writers and artists, and was close with many in the field, notably Ray Bradbury and Forrest J Ackerman.

Raymond Frederick Harryhausen was born June 29, 1920 in Los Angeles. After seeing King Kong in 1933 he began to experiment with creating animated shorts, eventually being mentored by King Kong animator Willis O’Brien. He joined the Los Angeles Science Fiction Society in 1939, where he became close with Ackerman and Bradbury. Harryhausen made films for the military in WWII (with director Frank Capra), and after the war began working in Hollywood. His first major job was as an assistant animator for O’Brien on Mighty Joe Young, winner of the 1949 Academy Award for special effects. He created effects for about 20 finished films (and worked on several that never made it to screen) during the ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s, producing a body of work that inspired future filmmakers including James Cameron, George Lucas, Peter Jackson, and Terry Gilliam.

Harryhausen received a First Fandom Hall of Fame Award in 1996, was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2005, and received a Karl Edward Wagner life achievement award from the British Fantasy Society in 2008.

For more, see his entry in the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. See the June issue of Locus for a complete obituary.

Andrew Jefferson Offutt V was born August 16, 1934 in Louisville KY. He often wrote under the byline “andrew j. offutt,” and work also appeared as by Andy Offutt, A.J. Offutt, and assorted pseudonyms and house names. Offutt’s first story was “And Gone Tomorrow” (1954), winner of an If magazine contest, but his professional career began in earnest with “Blacksword” in Galaxy (1959).

He published erotic novels beginning in the late ’60s, but the first SF novel under his own name was Evil is Live Spelled Backwards (1970). He co-wrote the War of the Wizards trilogy with Richard K Lyons (1978-81), and wrote the War of the Gods on Earth trilogy (1979-83). In the ’70s and ’80s he wrote several novels about Robert E. Howard’s characters Conan and Cormac Mac Art, and contributed significantly to the Thieves’ World shared universe in the ’80s and ’90s. He also edited several volumes of the Swords Against Darkness anthology series in the late ’70s. As John Cleve he wrote or co-wrote over 40 erotic novels, many SF.

Offutt married Jodie McCabe in 1957, and they had two daughters and two sons, including author Christopher Offutt. He is also survived by five grandchildren.

For more, see his entry in the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. See the June issue of Locus for a complete obituary.

Morales is best known for writing the Truth: Red, White & Black comic miniseries for Marvel (2003), about government experimentation on black men to create “super soldiers” like Captain America, with chilling echoes of the Tuskegee Experiments.

Born February 3, 1958 in New York City, he attended the Clarion workshop in 1976, and had many close friends in the SF community.

See the May issue of Locus for a complete obituary.

Born in New Jersey in August 26, 1954, Pollotta was a prolific author of science fiction, fantasy, and action/adventure novels, including Illegal Aliens (1989, with Phil Foglio), Savage (2013, with Bill Dunbar), Belle, Book and Candle (2012), Damned Nation (2010), That Darn Squid God (2004, with James Clay), as well as many others, including a large number written under the pen names James Axler, Jack Hopkins, and Don Pendleton. Some of his short fiction was collected in Tequila Mockingbird (2004).

Before moving to Philadelphia and discovering the world of science fiction, Pollotta was a stand-up comedian in Manhattan. He is survived by his wife, Melissa Hutchings, and three sons.

See the May issue of Locus for a complete obituary.

Ebert was the most famous film critic in America. He was the film reviewer for the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 to 2013, co-hosted TV programs At the Movies with Gene Siskel & Roger Ebert and Siskel and Ebert and The Movies, as well as appearing on Sneak Previews, Ebert & Roeper at the Movies, and Ebert Presents: At the Movies.

He published two SF stories: “After the Last Mass” in Fantastic (1972) and “In Dying Venice” in Amazing (1972). As a teenager he was an active SF fan, contributing letters of comment to various magazines and writing poems for Pat & Dick Lupoff’s Xero in the early ’60s; he also wrote the introduction for The Best of Xero (2004). He was friendly with fans, authors, and editors, including Wilson “Bob” Tucker and Ed Gorman, and published his own fanzine, Stymie.

Roger Joseph Ebert was born June 18, 1942 in Urbana IL. He attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and in 1966 joined the Chicago Sun-Times. After six months at the paper, he started reviewing films. In 1975 he began hosting a weekly TV show with Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune, which led to his long TV career. He won a Pulitzer Prize for criticism in 1975, the first film critic to do so. Ebert published over 20 books, including many volumes of his annual collection of film reviews.

He developed thyroid cancer in 2002, and ceased appearing on television when complications from a 2006 surgery left him unable to speak. In April 2013 he announced online that a hip injury had “been revealed to be a cancer.” He is survived by his wife Chaz Hammelsmith.

See the May issue of Locus for a complete obituary.

His horror novels include The Great White Space (1974), The Curse of the Fleers (1976), Necropolis (1980), The House of the Wolf (1983), Into the Silence (1983), and The Black Death (1991). Copper did much of his best work for editor August Derleth, whose  Arkham House published two of Copper’s novels and collections From Evil’s Pillow (1973, a World Fantasy Award finalist) and And Afterward, the Dark (1977). Copper also wrote many stories about Derleth’s character Solar Pons. Most of Copper’s output was actually hardboiled fiction, including over 50 novels about  private eye Mike Faraday.

Copper was born February 5, 1924, and worked for 30 years as a journalist, including 14 years as a news editor. His short work appeared in numerous collections, notably two-volume set Darkness, Mist and Shadow: The Collected Macabre Tales of Basil Copper (2010). Stephen Jones compiled and edited biographical bibliography Basil Copper: A Life in Books (2008), winner of a British Fantasy Award.

See the May issue of Locus for a complete obituary.

Born May 19, 1947 in Boston, Williams was a founder of the Philip K. Dick Society, and was incredibly influential in getting Dick’s work into the larger world; he wrote Only Apparently Real: The World of Philip K. Dick (1986), for which he was nominated for both a Hugo and a Locus Award. He put together the Complete Stories of Theodore Sturgeon project (and edited it while he could), of which various volumes earned him six Locus Award nominations as well as two World Fantasy Award special award nominations. He was  also known for his rock criticism, and founded music magazine Crawdaddy in 1967.

See the May issue of Locus for a complete obituary.

Silva is best known for editing influential magazine The Horror Show, which ran from 1982-1991 . Silva won a World Fantasy Award in 1988 in the special, non-professional category for his work on the magazine. He also edited anthologies, including Post Mortem: New Tales of Ghostly Horror (1989) and Dead End: City Limits (1991), both with Paul F. Olson, as well as books collecting the best work from The Horror Show. From 1997-2002 he and Olson co-edited industry newsletter Hellnotes, for horror professionals and fans. In 2004, the newsletter was revived as a website.

Silva began publishing short fiction in 1981, and “The Calling” (1990) won a Bram Stoker Award. Several of his other stories were Stoker finalists, and collection Through Shattered Glass (2001) won an International Horror Guild Award; more stories were collected in Little White Book of Lies (2005) and The Shadows of Kingston Mills (2009). His standalone novels include Child of Darkness (1986), Come Thirteen (1988), The Presence (1994), The Disappeared (1995), All the Lonely People (2003). The Family series, written with Kevin McCarthy, includes Special Effects (2001) and Into the Darkness (2002).

For more, see Robert Swartwood’s website, where the death was announced.

See the April issue of Locus for a complete obituary.

He published several standalone novellas, and some of his short work has been collected in Bedbugs (1999), Four Octobers (2006), Untcigahunk (2007), and Occasional Demons (2010), and the forthcoming Glimpses: The Best Short Stories of Rick Hautala. Hautala was active in the Horror Writers Association, where he served terms as vice president and trustee.

Richard Henry Hautala was born February 3, 1949 in Rockport MA, and graduated from the University of Maine in 1974 with a Masters in English, focusing on Renaissance and Medieval literature. He lived in southern Maine, and is survived by his wife, writer Holly Newstein, and their three adult sons.

See the May issue of Locus for a complete obituary.